• Comnet Marketing Group Inc., a Medford-based telephone survey group, will move most of its 150 jobs within four years. It is also foregoing expansions that would have added another 150 jobs to its Oregon work force.

• Blue Line Transportation Co., a Portland trucking firm, will likely move a division that generates $2 million in annual sales to Idaho. The hikes would have boosted the division’s yearly taxes to $10,000.

• MLS Inc., a 52-year-old publishing firm that specializes in small newspaper printing, is also considering whether to remain in Eugene.

• Even established companies wonder whether the new taxes will force them out of business.

The 74-year-old Star Oilco laid off one of its 15 employees in anticipation of paying the 2009 retroactive taxes. The Portland fuel distributor, which operates on margins ranging between 0.5 percent and 2 percent, would need to earn an extra $81 a day to pay its $15,000 corporate minimum tax bill.

The company recently received relocation overtures from officials in Kelso, Wash., and Longview, Wash.

“I wouldn’t move, I would just stop doing business,” said Mark Fitz, the company’s operations manager. “I won’t do that because we’re committed to our employees. But there are certain times that you question whether this is worth doing.”

In late January, voters passed measures 66 and 67, which raised Oregon’s corporate minimum and income taxes, as well as personal income taxes on higher-earning residents. Businesses largely opposed the measures.

Jason Pierce, MLS’ majority shareholder, estimates that the new taxes put him at an 18 percent to 21 percent cost disadvantage compared to his national printing competitors.

“This only tweaks our bottom line and will immediately cost one or two people their jobs,” said Pierce, whose company employs 38 workers. “We haven’t decided what we’ll do, but that cost disadvantage makes us ask how valuable it is to stay in Oregon.”

The relocation and layoff announcements could grow from a trickle to a groundswell when business owners collect their next tax bills.

The April notices will require them to pay both their 2010 fees and new tax levies retroactive to January 2009.

State officials expect to hear from angry business owners.

“We do expect some companies will be making some decisions based on impact from the tax measures and also the economic climate and whether they feel their company can stay in business in general,” said Karen Wilde Goddin, a trade director for Business Oregon, the state’s economic development arm.

Yet Goddin added that relocating companies may not find the going easier elsewhere. Oregon’s overall business tax climate is only the 36th-most onerous among all states, according to Washington, D.C.-based researcher The Tax Foundation. The group factors in all tax factors, including corporate levies and Oregon’s lack of a sales tax.

To many, that’s not good enough. Comnet surveyed 200 southern Oregon businesses before the vote and found that 65 percent were “more likely” to move if the measures passed.

“Basically, we now have a sales tax because we’ll have to charge more money,” said Bruce Hough, Comnet’s president.

Hough, whose workers average salaries around $30,000, is exploring sites in Nevada, Idaho and Texas “because those are places that seem to be business-friendly.”

While speculation remains that large Portland companies will relocate or downsize, rural businesses seem to be dealing with the new taxes first.

Farmers, who produce higher revenue volumes at low margins, will be particularly squeezed.

As they cut expenses, they may rethink their buying habits, which harms their suppliers.

Several John Day-area ranchers have also reduced their work forces, as have fuel and agricultural chemical suppliers.

“Our members are very concerned about the trickle-down effect as farmers try to recoup their taxes,” said Katie Fast, government affairs director for the Oregon Farm Bureau Federation.

The taxes may add a new burden to already-strapped rural businesses.

Harney County, in southeast Oregon, has reported 15 percent-plus unemployment rates for most of the past year.

Businesses in remote areas spend more on shipping because goods must travel longer distances.

In contrast, Democratic Rep. Ben Cannon said no businesses have told him they’re leaving his Southeast Portland district.

“The vast majority of them concluded that the extra costs are justified for the quality-of-life we have in Oregon,” Cannon said.

State economic officials will try to assuage concerns directly. Goddin’s department will offer its full arsenal of retention tools, including training about resource reduction and export strategies, to owners considering a relocation.

Qualified business owners who say the taxes have left them without working capital could also receive state-backed loan guarantees.

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